The Causality of serial killers' crime in early childhood

The Causality of serial killers' crime in early childhood

                                  Mariam Vardan Karapetyan

                      Yerevan State University, Psychological center “Zhesture”

Abstract
Although the term "serial killer" was first introduced in the 1970s, was originated from
Federal Bureau Special Agent Robert Ressler in describing New York cases, Serial
killers have been investigated since the 1400s, when the French nobleman Gilles de Rais
tortured, sexually abused and killed hundreds of children.

There are many factors that are important to be analyzed in order to catch the serial
killer. The most important methods are psychological profiling-Victimology, Signature,
Modus Operandi. Here it is important to have a psychological portrait of the killer.

When we hear the term “Serial killer”, we think that it is spoken about a supernatural
one who has a strange distinguishing look. Nevertheless, the reality is that serial killer is
a usual man who can be your new acquaintance, neighbor, friend even a family member.
They can be very friendly people who will ask to do a favor for them and instead of
thanking they kill with cruelty. However, the researches show that the majority of serial
Killers themselves were the victims of violence in their childhood, which means that
violence gives birth to violence. Not all serial killers, however, have had child trauma or
been subjected to violence at an early age, but the fact that serial killers have been
subjected to violence at an early age is not a coincidence.

Keywords: Serial killer, Abusive childhood, Psychological profle.

Introduction
          At different stages of life, we face different situations that can have a profound
  effect on our behavior, disrupt the emotional field, and interpersonal relationships.
  The response to these events - adaptive stress or psychological trauma - depends on
  the personality of the person. Sometimes deep traumatic childhood shapes an
  individual. The term "psychological trauma" first appeared in the 19th century. The
  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Problems defines trauma «direct personal
  experience of an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury, threat
                                                 1

to one’s physical integrity, witnessing an event that involves the above experience,
learning about unexpected or injury experienced by a family member or close
associate. Memories associated with trauma are typically explicit, coherent and
difficult to forget»1 Trauma is particularly profound in early childhood (0-6) and may
be arisen from child abuse. Children are subjected to emotional, psychological,
sexual, and physical abuse as well neglect: Neglect occurs when the parent does not
provide the child with the necessary care: dirty clothes, dirty hair, lack of necessary
education, clothing, food and medical intervention. There are times when it is difficult
to distinguish whether neglect has occurred or social conditions are not sufficient to
provide the child with the necessary care. In families where neglect is used, parents
themselves encourage children to find themselves in an environment where they may
be subjected to other forms of violence. Physical abuse is the force used to
intentionally harm a child. Examples of physical abuse include shaking, throwing,
slapping, burning skin, poisoning, making run or do other physical exercises,
forbidding sleeping, eating, medication, drowning or hanging. Emotional and
psychological abuse may not be visible, but it has a profound effect. It occurs when
someone intentionally damages the child's self-esteem and causes him to feel unloved,
worthless, or inappropriate. Emotional and psychological abuse can be both verbal
and non-verbal, accompanied by physical activity. A vivid example is convincing a
child that he is bad, a result of misunderstanding, screaming, silencing, threatening,
ridiculing, restricted physical contact, and loving words. Sexual abuse is the
involvement of a child in sexual activity, and it is not mandatory for them to be
touched during that time. Not only actions but also 18+ jokes or stories, watching 18+
movies in the presence of children, encouraging sexual relations are examples of
sexual abuse. Children who are victims of violence at an early age tend to be
subjected to violence themselves, which means that violence gives birth to violence.
Not all serial killers, however, have had child trauma or been subjected to violence at
an early age, but the fact that serial killers have been subjected to violence at an early
age is not a coincidence.

        Methods of detecting serial killers
       Although the term "serial killer" was first introduced in the 1970s, was
originated from Federal Bureau Special Agent Robert Ressler in describing New York
cases,2 Serial killers have been investigated since the 1400s, when the French
nobleman Gilles de Rice tortured, sexually abused and killed hundreds of children. As

1
  McNally, Richard, 2003, Remembering trauma, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University press, ISBN 978-
0674018020
2
  Miller L., Serial Killers: Subtypes, patterns and motives. Aggression and violent Behavior 19, 1-11
                                                  2

it is difficult to distinguish serial killers from mass murderers, Morton and Hilts
define "Serial Killer" as a person who kills two or more people at different times:3

        Unlike serial killers, mass murderers commit murder through revenge, hatred,
or greed. Serial killers have other motives for murder, and their revelations often help
reveal their identities. There are various methods used to detect serial killers, one of
which is to classify serial killers according to motives for murder, but it should also
be taken into account that finding motives for murder in this case is quite difficult as
there may be several motives as well as there are some serial killers who kill just
because they want to do it. For example, Samuel Little, the most prolific serial killer
in the United States. "I killed because I wanted to," "If God opposed killing, he would
have stopped me." Samuel worked closely with the Federal Bureau of Prisons,
acknowledging murders whose bodies had not yet been discovered. Still images of
unidentified victims taken by Samuel are now on the Federal Bureau's website:4
There are many different typological classifications, but the most prominent are those
of Holmes and De Burger given are the five types 5.

        1. Visionary types. This type includes the killers who hear the voices that
order them to kill. For example, Stanley Eric Mossburg (Woo Woo, number of
murders -3) considered himself a prophet of God. “I love to kill. I kill because God
needs them in the "struggle of the angels and the devils" God chooses my victims
himself. «Mossburg was able to be detected because he had left one of the victims
alive, saying: "I will not kill you, because God has commanded me not to touch you."
Mossburg was planning to kill 11 more. Considering the fact that Jesus' apostles are
12, it is likely that he would commit suicide in the end. Nevertheless, it is also
noteworthy that among the victims, there was a woman, and there was no woman
among the apostles.

        2. Mission-oriented types. Killers of this type believe that they are killing the
evil that is happening in society. Their target groups are mostly prostitutes, women
from the lower classes. This group also includes racial killers. For example, Gary
Leon Ridgway (number of murders 71, proven 49). He gained the trust of the
prostitutes by showing them a photo of his son. When he was arrested, he passes a
polygraph examination. His murders diminished when he married his third wife, who
thought that marrying him had saved many people's lives. Ridgeway's hatred of
women has begun following sexually transmitted infections. He often complained

3
  Morton R. & Hilts M., (2005) Serial murder: Multidisciplinary perspectives for investigators. F.B.I.
Behavioral Analysis Unit
4
  https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/samuel-little-most-prolific-serial-killer-in-us-history-100619
5
  De Burger and Holmes /1985/
                                                    3

about their presence, but he regularly used their service. According to Terry
McCarthy, "he could not distinguish between his religious whims and religious
beliefs.6 He was often crying while reading the Bible or listening to passages.

        3. Hedonistic types. Killers of this type are just killing for fun. For example,
Jeffrey Dahmer (17 male victims). He promised his victims money, invited him home,
drank with them, and then killed. After the murder, he had sexual relations with his
victims, took their body parts as a souvenir, photographed them, then looking back at
the photos, and was reliving the pleasure of the murder.

       4. Control types. People of this type want to control the victims through
murder. For example, Robert Bundy (best known as Ted Bundy -30 proved and 100
not proved victims) Ted targeted women and girls. He met them, pretending to be an
organist or a disabled person, taking them to a secluded place, having sex with them,
and then killing them. He was also a necrophilia, and was often taking out of the
bodies from the graves and had sexual relations with them until they were discovered.
Bandy was washing the victims' hair with shampoo, and he was angry every time
when a beloved girl cut her hair.

       Bundy received a lawyer's and psychologist's education, which helped him
deal with the killings. He was extremely persuasive and cautious, and even when his
beloved girl phoned the police to report that the serial killer was Bundy, she was not
believed. Bundy was detected after mistake made during the recent murder, suddenly
without planning broke into the dormitory by brutally attacking the girls.

         5. Predator types. It is typical for people of this type to have fun hunting for
people. For example, Vera Renczi / Number of victims-35 /. Vera targeted men who
could be either her husband or lovers. Vera had long been in love with her victims.
Initially he was killing her husbands who didn't spend enough time with her or
betrayed. She even gave birth to a child in the hope of being able to make her husband
spend more time with her. However, nothing succeeds and she decides to poison him.
She chose her husband's favorite drink, planned a beautiful evening with him, and
poured arsenic into the cup. For about a year, she assured everyone that her husband
had left her, and then declared that he had been the victim of a car accident. Doing the
same with her second husband, she decided not to marry anymore, became a lover
who "ends up leaving". Vera was detected only when one wife of her lovers had
followed her husband and saw that he was not leaving. Police found 30 zinc coffins in
Vera's basement. She hadn't not let them go away by murder. Vera used to sit on the

6
    McCarthy: Thornburgh, Nathan/June 3. 2002/ “River of Death”, New York city.
                                                   4

armchair in the cellar and look at the coffins for a long time, each of which had one
victim.

        Profiling is the reverse engineering of a crime or a series of crimes. We
look at the behavior exhibited and we work backwards to the type of person and
the type of personality who committed that crime, because every offender picks a
particular victim at a particular time, at a particular place, in a particular manner, for a
particular purpose. Those choices that he makes reveal things, unwittingly, about
himself: what his desires are, what his capabilities are, what his skill levels are, what
his education is, what his physical ability is, etc. All those things reveal the kind of
person that he is, and we use that information to direct the investigation. 7 The profiler
produces a report for local investigators that predicts the possible personality,
physical, and social characteristics of the unknown offender. The psychological
profile includes the internal psychological and behavioral characteristics. It can be a
tool in the search for a murderer when the location of the murder and the condition of
the victim indicate some deviation. The profile can vary in length from a few
paragraphs to a number of pages depending on how much information the
investigation had to analyze at the input step.

         The next of the methods to detect serial killers that we are studying in this
article is Victimology.

        Victimology is the peculiarity of victim selection. Often, similarities can be
found between victims when investigating a murder, which can help identify the
killer. It may include the victim's age, sex, race, occupation, appearance, marital
status, and vulnerability. Frequently the choice of victims also speaks to the
intellectual abilities of the serial killer. The lower the risk of victims, the higher the
intellectual capacity of the killer. Serial sadists select unknown victims because it is
easier to torture them. There are murderers who choose prostitutes, the homeless, the
poor because no one will try to find them. For example, in the late 19th century, the
undiscovered but well-known Jack the Ripper (attributed to 11 murders but according
to MO-five) who brutally murdered prostitutes. The name became known from letters
sent to Scotland Yard. Since there were so many emails in those days, only three
attributed Jack the Ripper. Along with the letter from "From the Hell", he also sent a
part kidney of a murdered woman kept in ethanol, and promised to send a bloody
knife later. In the Dear Boss letter, he insisted that he would kill prostitutes for as long
as he is not caught. He loved his job and taunts police officers who claim to have
caught him or were on the right track. He had promised to send the victims' ears. In a

7
    https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2013/10/fbi-profiler/
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Saucy Jack-Postcard, he promised to be heard about again the next day and
apologized for not having the time to send the ears to the police.

        There are murderers who treat the victims as captives, whose torture and
killing make them heroes. For example, the Novokuznetsov monster, Alexander
Spesivtsev. He targeted women and children. His mother often helped to lure the
victims. He brought the victims to his home by some pretext, where the tortures
began. Alexander was very attached to his mother. The father was an alcoholic and
betrayed his mother. He was sleeping in his mother's bed until he was 12 years old.
The mother was an assistant to the prosecutor and often showed photographs of the
victims to the child. Instead of books, Alexander read the results of the investigation,
the forensic examination. When he left the psychiatric ward at the age of 21,
Alexander continued to kill. When the killings started, Alexander was not caught for a
long time because law enforcement officials thought he was still in the hospital
because of a misdemeanor. Alexander treated his victims cruelly, each time
developing new techniques, sometimes ambushed by groups, forcing the girls to kill
their friend, dismember, and prepare food by them. One day, one of the neighbors
complained that he smelled of this door all the time, and the police break the door and
reveal everything. The only survivor who survived told the whole horror.

        Murderers sometimes killing someone always "kill" the person who caused the
trauma. He can be both his mother, father, family member, and loved one. For
example, Daniel Camargo Barbosa / victims -150/. Camargo had deep childhood
traumas. His mother had died, and his father, being a cold, emotionless man, had
married a woman who worshiped girl children and hated boy children. She had the
habit of exposing Camargo and beating him with a whip. On one occasion when
Camargo was arguing at school, his stepmother took off his pants, forced him to wear
a dress, and invited his classmates to laugh at him. The effect on the final psyche was
that he fell in love with Esperanza, worshiped her, but it turned out that she was not a
virgin. He persuaded Esperanza to find virgin girls for whom he raped. The last
victim complains, and they were arrested, and then commenced murder. Camargo
targeted the virgin girls, raped her and killed them so that they would not complain
anymore. “I hate prostitutes. They are disgusting and infectious. I want a virgin girl»:

       The next major method are the murder signature and Modus Operandi.

        The signature of the murder can describe the psychological profile of the
person who committed the murder. For example, if a fire is chosen as a means of
killing, then the murder may be committed on the grounds of religion, politics, and
revenge. The person who organizes the fire is always present to enjoy the work he has

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done. If the bomb is chosen as a means of killing, then the structure of the bomb itself
speaks to the intelligence and abilities of the serial killer. Mostly people who choose
the bomb are scary. If the murder is committed by two people, then one becomes a
ruler, a dominant, the other a servant, and subordinate. The subordinate has always
felt humiliated, and only feels powerful because of the ruler. Murder also stands out
when it is committed by women. There are two types of serial women: 1. cold,
calculating, money-driven, 2. fearful, paranoid, and methodical, following the rules.

        The signature of the murder is one of the "winning cards" to find the killers.
The signature, in contrast to the Modus Operandi, is more effective, as the special
murder procedure identifies the killer. If everyone can have the MO, the signatures do
not leave all the killers. Unlike MO, the signature never changes. The signature can be
not only the position of the victims after the murder, but can also be an action, such as
sending letters to magazines, sending a video of the murder to the body of the victims,
engraving something, inserting something or taking a souvenir, and leaving for an
example on the next victim, etc. In this way, they satisfy the full enjoyment of not
killing. An example of a serial killer captured by the signature is Charles Albright.
When a number of crimes began, the victims were blindfolded. The forensic doctor
stated after the autopsy that an equal and perfect work had been done that could only
be done by a person with a medical education. The ring of suspects was tightened and
they were able to arrest Charles Albright.

There are other methods of analyzing and detecting the serial killers such us
Geographical Profiling or Hargrove methods. Though all methods are very important,
there are cases that these methods are excluded the detection of the murder. Such is in
the case of Zodiac Killer. The main suspect was Arthur Leigh Allen. All evidence
against Allen is circumstantial, though the large quantity of circumstantial evidence is
the primary reason that Allen became the primary suspect in the Zodiac case.

Direct Evidence:
      In 1992, surviving victim Mike Mageau picked Allen out of a police lineup.
      Surviving victim Bryan Hartnell identified his voice and physical appearance
      as being similar to the Zodiac.
      2020 DNA evidence
Circumstantial Evidence:
      Allen communicated to his friend Don Cheney (through the premise of writing
      a novel) the following ideas:
              He would like to kill couples randomly.
              He would taunt the police with letters detailing his crimes.

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       He would sign the letters with the cross-circle symbol from his watch.
             He wanted to one day call himself "Zodiac." He said this to his friend
             He would wear make-up to change his appearance.
             He would attach a flashlight to the barrel of his gun in order to shoot at
           night.
             He would fool women into stopping their cars in rural areas by
           claiming they had problems with their tires, then loosen their lug nuts and
           eventually take them captive.[1]
     Allen was born on December 18, around the same time the Zodiac told
    attorney Melvin Belli's housekeeper over the phone that it was his birthday and
    he needed to kill someone.
     Allen lived in Vallejo near the Blue Rock Springs and Lake Herman Road
    murders.
     Allen was allegedly in Riverside on the weekend when Cheri Jo Bates was
    murdered. He later claimed to be in Pomona when he heard of Bates' murder.
     Allen took his only sick day of the year on Nov.1, 1966 (Bates was murdered
    on Oct. 30, 1966).
     The Vallejo Police Department seized a Royal typewriter with Elite type from
    Allen's home, which is the brand of typewriter used to write the Bates' letters.
             Note: To date, the typewriter has not been compared to the Bates
           letters.
     Received a Zodiac watch from his mother for Christmas in 1967, according to
    his brother. Allen estimated receiving the watch in 1969.
     Allen communicated to his friend Philip that he was fascinated with the idea
    of killing people. He believed that people were more challenging to kill than
    animals since they were more intelligent. Similar sentiments were
    communicated during the three-part cipher mailed to newspapers. Allen also
    mentioned to the police that his favourite book was The Most Dangerous Game,
    a book about killing humans and possibly alluded to in a Zodiac
    correspondence.
     Mageau described a brown Corvair at the Blue Rock Springs scene. Allen's
    friend, Philip, owned a brown Corvair that Allen was allowed to use.
     Allen told friend Don Cheney that he was fond of a waitress at the
    International House of Pancakes in Vallejo, the place where Darlene Ferrin
    worked as a waitress.
     An unidentified man named "Lee" was known to associate with Ferrin, and
    Allen frequently went by his middle name.
     Told police he was going up to Berryessa on the day of the Hartnell/Shepard
    attack, but decided to go up the coast instead.
     Allen admitted to possessing bloody knives on the day of the Berryessa attack,
    claiming that he used them to kill chickens.
     Cheney mentioned to Ron Allen that Arthur had two .22 caliber weapons.
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 Zodiac is frequently theorized as having military ties, and Allen was at one
     time a sail maker in the navy.
      Allen wore size 10.5 shoes, similar to those left at the crime scene.
      In 1991, a nemesis of Allen's named Ralph Spinelli told police that Allen
     admitted to being the Zodiac and that he would prove it by going to San
     Francisco and "killing a cabbie."
      In 1991, the search warrant for Allen's house found bomb diagrams and the
     same ingredients for bombs that were mentioned in a previous Zodiac letter.
      Karen Allen, his sister-in-law, stated that Allen would use the shortened
     "trigger mech" in place of "trigger mechanism," as well as spelling Christmas
     with two S's. Both idiosyncrasies appear in the Zodiac letter to Melvin Belli.
      Karen also stated that he was taught to write right-handed as a child, even
     though he was left-handed.
      Allen claimed to have consulted with Melvin Belli, an attorney mentioned by
     name in the Zodiac letters.
Although this evidences there are also Exculpatory evidences

Direct Evidence:
         The eyewitnesses of the Stine murder scene claimed Allen was not the man
         they saw.
Circumstantial Evidence:
         Fingerprints/palm prints did not match.
         DNA didn't match.
         Handwriting was not a match.
         Did not wear glasses.
         Was old with grey-black hair.

The Causality of the Crime in the Childhood
The Serial Killers are not born as a killer and do not come from nowhere. They have
their own history. The majority of them had childhood traumas, As Jim Clemente
says.” Your genetics load the gun, your personality aims it, and the events in your life
pull the trigger”8

According to “Genetics and environment work together to encourage violent
behavior.” For example, those with a specific variant of the enzyme monoamine-
oxidase-A gene are more prone to displaying violent behavior if they have had an
abusive upbringing. A child susceptible to genetically driven violent conduct does not

8
    https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2013/10/fbi-profiler/
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necessarily become a criminal. However, genetics, in tandem with environmental
factors such as violent childhood experiences, work together to shape a person”9

Early childhood is a key information about the serial killer. There are some key
factors in childhood that can give a rise a further killer. Such factors are bedwetting
/only if it is done after age 5 and continues for months/, hurting small animals, Head
injury, uncontrollable aggression, witnessing of violence, Psychiatric disorders etc.

In our work we have studied some notorious serial killer who had great number of
killings.

Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos /La bestia/. /139 proved and 147 confessed victims/.
He was choosing boys, torturing them, raping and then killing/8-16 years old/. His
mother was a prostitute, his father was drinking. He and his family was sexually
abused by the father. He made him watch how his mother was having sex with other
men and then let them abuse Garavito himself. Soon he ran out of the house but
unfortunately became the victim of the pedophile at the age of eight. When he grew
up, he used those pedophiles tricks with candy and food to lure boys.

Pedro Alonso Lopez-The father died before he was born and his mother was a
prostitute. He was psychologically affected from being the witness of the sexual
relationship. When he was eight. He touched his sister’s breast and his mother asked
him to live the house. He met a man who took him to his house, tortured, and raped
him for many years. When he was 12. He was found by a family and was taken to
school where was bothered by the teacher. He was taking his victims out of the grave
trying to speak to them, play, but as they did not respond, he began to look for other
victims. Describing his victims he said that they never cry, never expect anything,
they are innocent.

Moses Sithole-he was called ABC Murderer as he was killing in alphabetic order. /38
victims/. Mother had left him and other children when his father died. As a teenager,
he escaped from the house. Then he was arrested for the rape of a girl which affected
on his entire life very much. He confessed that he had not raped the girl and every
time when he killed someone, he was killing that girl. During one of his murders, he
damaged a child’s head and let him die. This can be connected with his mother who
left him too helpless in such conditions when he was a child.

Anatoly Onoprienko /the beast of Ukraine, the terminator, the citizen O/ number of
victims: 52. First, he was killing the husband, then the wife and then the children.

9
 Raine A. The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime. New York: Pantheon
Books; 2013.
                                           10

When he was 1 year old, father left home. When he was, three mother died and he
was taken to orphanage. His father was drinking and often was treating the children in
a bad way. He was a driver. Most of his victims were drivers. He was killing his
father by killing them. Other orphans mocked him very much as he was there but he
had a father and a brother. He had fought in orphanage very much and escaped from
there. Onoprienko said that he was killing children in order to save them from
orphanage. He returned to his father’s house but had many conflicts and went away.
In 1983, he returned with a car to present it to his father but his father was afraid of
the revenge and did not accept him telling he was very ill. Anatoly went away and
never came back.

About two years after marriage and two months before birth, Eileen her mother filed
for divorce. Eileen never saw her father; by the time of her birth he was sent to prison
and convicted on charges of molestation and attempted murder of an 8-year-old boy.
He was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and hanged himself in a cell. When Aileen
was almost 4 years old, her mother left her with her brother to raise her parents. With
eleven years, Wuornos began to have sex at school in exchange for cigarettes, drugs
and food. She also entered into a sexual relationship with her sibling. Wuornos
claimed that her alcoholic grandfather raped and beat her, forced her to undress.
Subsequently, psychiatrists questioned this fact. At the age of 14, she became
pregnant after being raped by her grandfather's accomplice. Wuornos gave birth to a
child in an orphanage and later the boy was handed over for adoption. A few months
after the birth of her baby, she dropped out of school. By this time, her grandmother
had died due to liver failure. When Aileen was 15 years old, her grandfather drove her
out of the house, she had to engage in prostitution in order to earn a living. She lived
in a forest near her old home.

Conclusion
Every parent should have a responsibility to ensure his child with a healthy
atmosphere, give him the whole care he needs, often tell him how important he is and
protect him from every kind of abuse.

Children who are victims of violence at an early age tend to be subjected to violence
themselves, which means that violence gives birth to violence. Not all serial killers,
however, have had child trauma or been subjected to violence at an early age, but the
fact that serial killers have been subjected to violence at an early age is not a
                                          11

coincidence. Many serial killers treat their victims as they were treated at a young
age.

References
    McNally, Richard(2003), Remembering trauma, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
     University press, ISBN 978-0674018020
    Miller L., (2014)Serial Killers: Subtypes, patterns and motives. Aggression
     and violent Behavior 19, 1-11
    Morton R. & Hilts M., (2005) Serial murder: Multidisciplinary perspectives
     for investigators. F.B.I. Behavioral Analysis Unit
    De Burger and Holmes (1985) Profiles in terror, the serial murder, 29-34
    McCarthy: Thornburgh, Nathan(June 3. 2002) “River of Death”, New York
     city.
    Raine A. (2013).The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime.
     New York: Pantheon Books;

    https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2013/10/fbi-profiler/

    https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2013/10/fbi-profiler/
    https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/samuel-little-most-prolific-serial-killer-in-
     us-history-100619

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